Where is my camera and Disneyland

I'm a little freaked out right now because I have yet to be able to find my nice Nikon camera. I had it last at Nick's Marine graduation and now I cant find it. I know we took it with us but not sure what happened from the car to the house. All the pictures of the graduation are on there and I would be crushed if I lost those pics as well as my nice camera. Anyway, this is my first day off this week so I will look everywhere and if and when I find it I will post all those awesome graduation pictures.

I wanted to do a quick update. We redid our stairs. Our home was built in 1994 so it has many of the lovely 90's furnishings. We have changed most everything but the stairs were one thing that we thought would be very expensive to change so had put it off but we checked into it recently and decided it was cheaper than we thought so we should go ahead and do it. We had the rails painted and the big room painted and then Kevin removed all the wood spindles and then replaced them with iron spindles we bought online. It ended up making a HUGE difference as our staircase is a very prominent feature in our house right when you walk in. It looks awesome. These are pictures I just had in my camera after the project was complete. They are not good pictures but gives you an idea of what it looks like.

This is the before. I searched for a good picture of the staircase but could not find one. This is a picture from my grandparents 75th wedding anniversary last November 1. You can see a little bit of the staircase but you get the idea-- honey wood- screaming 1990's

The bottom little caps were not on yet but you get the idea. There are little feet that go on the bottom of the spindle- they were not on yet in these pictures.

After the graduation last Friday, Kevin dropped Mia and I off at Disneyland on our way home and I met up with my sister to do Disney at night.


My dorky 11 year old-- he was acting like a total dork for these pictures!

Me and my boys

Me and my kids

Love this picture. I think Mia looks so darn funny! We are on the Peter Pan ride.

My little twerp!!


We had a nice time. Pray I find my camera as that would be quite a loss. Today I have Mia's 3 year old pictures-- a little delayed. I will post them when I get them back.

Happy # 3 Birthday Mia and Halloween!!

Since Mia's birthday is October 29, I have a sneaky suspicion that her birthday is often going to get lumped with our Halloween party but we will see. I have some great pictures from my pal Kim's son Nick's Marine Boot camp graduation but there are tons of pictures to go through so I will do that post a little later in the week. So this post is Mia's birthday party and Halloween. We did a little cake party on Mia's actual birthday but those pictures are on the other camera so I will post those later as well but we did her actual birthday party with a jumpy and big cake on Halloween. We usually have a little family get together so we just combined the two parties and it became a Halloween/ Mia party.

Our crew before we went out trick or treating.

This is a horrible picture but I had to show how busy our streets were this year. Remember that scene from ET when the streets were filled with people all dressed up -- that is how it was this year. We just get tons of trick or treaters- tons!! The streets were just full!!

Ethan, Tanner and Mark

Mia and Kaitlyn trick or treating

Kacy, Kas and Owen

On our stairs- the younger cousins- Nathan, Mia, Savannah and Haileyanna

Mia and her cool Dora cake - wow did she love it!!!

Getting ready to blow

Picking out the characters

Mommy cutting the cake with all my servers

Mia's big gift-- the Cool Costco Doll House-- gotta love Costco!!!



I will go through all the Graduation pics and get those posted ASAP. Have a great week-- I have a busy one--ugggg!!!

Piggies gone and Sunday, Bloody Sunday!

Well, we are almost all healthy and Kevin is the only one of us who did not catch the N1H1. We are all feeling better but the cough and headache is lingering. Kids are back in school and all is well but I must tell you about the calamity of errors that occurred on Sunday.

We had a busy weekend with a party on Friday night, an adult only Halloween party we love and look forward to on Saturday night and we were supposed to go to Disneyland on Sunday after church. Needless to say, everything was cancelled due to our unforeseen illness. Sunday we were all laying around like bumps on logs just trying to survive. Ethan and Owen were both feeling a lot better and were medicated so they were on the side yard playing hockey. They came in and Ethan wanted to re tape his hockey stick. I'm laying on the couch with Mia and Kevin is on the computer. All of a sudden we hear "oh no oh no-- it cant be--help help." When I hear that my stomach turns and my heart stops. Sure enough, I look in the kitchen and Ethan has his hand in the air, blood is everywhere and he is yelling. Being the wuss I am I sent Kevin into the war zone and sure enough, Ethan had literally chopped off the top of his thumb and it was flapped over-- holy cow it turns my stomach to type it--gross!! It was about mid thumb on the fleshy side cut in half but still attached. I never looked because I would have freaked but Kevin bandaged it and headed to Urgent Care (where he then spent the next 5 hours waiting for them to stitch the thumb back on). Turns out Ethan was attempting to cut the existing hockey tape off his stick with a very large and sharp Santuko kitchen knife-- always impressed with my sons well thought out plans-- holy cow!!! So Kevin and Ethan leave and I begin to clean up all the blood that has been spread everywhere. I finally finish the gruesome clean up and all of a sudden Mia comes running into the kitchen crying and she is literally covered in blood. It is all over her night gown, face, hands, mouth-- everywhere!! I'm freaking out because I cant tell where the blood is coming from but then I realize she was having her first bloody nose. My boys never had a bloody nose nor have Kevin or I so I have never had to deal with a bloody nose and the large volume of blood produced. I got the nose stopped and got her in the bath and then proceeded to then spend the next chunk of time cleaning up the blood from her nose. Holy cow was that a bloody morning-- As U2 put it-- Sunday, Bloody Sunday!!!

So we are fine now and back to work and school. Ethan, with his stitched up thumb, is at science camp up in the mountains for two nights until Friday with his 6th grade class. He was sooooooo excited this morning when I dropped him off with his suitcase and sleeping bag at school. Owen is good and looking forward to Grandparents day at school on Friday. Mia, Kev and I are looking forward to traveling to San Diego to see my blogger pal Kim's son Nick graduate from Marine Boot Camp on Friday-- Go Nick!!!

One more item-- guess who turns 3 tomorrow????? Yes you guessed it-- my little independent, never stops talking, strong willed girl-- Miss Mia June Fei!! October 29, 2006!! I am hoping to get some cute pictures of her tomorrow but not sure if that is going to happen so the birthday post may be delayed by a few days-- we will see. Here are a few pictures of Mia in her Sunday School Class a few weeks ago. I thought it was so cute the way they hold onto the rope- I had to take a picture of it!

Oink Oink!!!

Yes, as you can see from the title of this post that pigs are in the air. Our family is all sick right now with a wonderful case of swine flu-- ugggg!!! Owen woke up Wednesday morning with a high fever, cough and sore throat. He got worse on Thursday so I made him an appointment to see the Doctor on Friday. Friday morning all the kids work up sick with the same symptoms-- ugg!! We all went to the doctor and they did not test for N1H1 but they said that they fit the characteristics of N1H1 and that pretty much most kids who are sick with flu like symptoms right now have N1H1-- so that includes my 3 little piggies!! Anyway, we have been seeing fevers up in the 106.4 range which freaks me out but medicated they seem fine. The doctor did not prescribe tamaflu because she said the side effects are worse than the actual illness and since my kids are healthy they would just let it run its course-- fine with me. So I go and get all the over the counter motin and Tylenol Flu and all the lovely meds and get home and realize I feel horrible. Sure enough, I laid down and have been feeling horrible since. So Kev is the only survivor right now and I pray he keeps it at bay. Owen is feeling better this morning but Ethan, Mia and I are still not well at all. Pray we get better soon as I have a very busy week complete with driving to San Diego to see my blogger pal Kim's son Nick graduate from the Marine Corp Boot Camp. Kevin and I are sooooooo looking forward to that so we need to get better once and for all!!!

Hope all is well with you all!

TINK

My little Tinker Bell wanted to wear her costume her BFF Ava gave her. She put it on and wanted to wear her matching Tinker Bell clip that our good pal Kim gave her. As soon as she was in the costume she began to spin and leap and act like the "pwitty pwinsess" she is. Here are a few shots of her "modeling" session.

This picture cracks me up because I said to her that she had a smile just like the tinker bell on her shirt. She looked down and said "ya momma I do have a pwitty smile like Tinker Bell but I have pwitty black hair not yellow ones like her." Well said my little black haired Tink!! She then put her face down on her chest so she could smile like Tink.

Soooooo pwitty!!!!!!

Mickey's Trick and Treat with the Lucky Mommies

The Lucky Mommas went to the Mickey Trick or Treat on Friday night. It is a fun event where they close California Adventure to the public and you have to buy a separate ticket for the event. There is candy and more candy and more candy. The kids had such a great time and it was tons of fun seeing all the girls and their mommy's as well.

The boys brought their pal Carson to join in on the adventure.

The kids rode the Toy Story ride which is 3D so I had to get a picture with the glasses.

Posing for a group shot. There is Mia, Gracie and Becky. Kailee (who by the way is in a Gap online ad -- total little model- check her out on the baby Gap site) was there too but was not in the mood to model for a group shot.

Gracie and Becky



It is almost impossible to get a shot with everyone looking at the camera and smiling.

Another try

One shot of Kailee-- she was an adorable kitty cat for the event!!

Love that Gracie smile!

Beautiful Becky

The boys on the Ferris wheel-- on a sugar high!!

Cruise to Cabo

I just read about a family who needs to find a home for their adopted son. You really need to read about the situation but it is heartbreaking and this poor family is suffering but sadly, they must find a home for their son. Please read about this family and this 8 year old boy. Keep them in your prayers. http://watchingthewaters.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/family-needed/#comment-1397

Kevin and I had a great time on our alone cruise without kids. We had no plans to go on this short 4 night cruise until we saw the prices and then we couldn't turn it down. FYI-- if you live close to a port, you can get cruises for next to nothing. This 4 night cruise out of San Diego to Cabo was only $199 a person and that is everything included except drinks. It is almost cheaper going on a cruise than staying home :)

Anyway, we thoroughly enjoyed doing literally nothing. We woke up late, ate, sat and read, ate, laid by the pool, ate, went to our room to nap or watch a movie, got ready for dinner, went to dinner, went to the club or went dancing or sit and talk. It was just what we needed as a couple-- time alone to just be together. If you think of it as marital therapy, it is actually a cheap therapy session :)

This was our Cabo day. We had to take the life boats to the shore because there is no pier for them to dock.

Cabo was about 95 degrees with about 95% humidity. We are southern California people and while we are use to hot hot weather, our weather is dry so the horrendous humidity got to us and all we felt like doing was sitting at a restaurant and relaxing. While eating out lunch a guy came up to the bar and ordered a beer and decided it was too expensive to he left. I asked if he worked on our boat and he said yes so we bought him a beer. He sat and chatted with us for a long time until his other friends from the boat walked by so they all came over as well and we bought them all a beer. They were great!! We had such fun drinking beer and margaritas and hearing about their home life. All of them were from Trinidad or St. Vincent Islands (English speaking islands around Jamaica-- I think). They were great and it was a perfect afternoon hanging out with some cool guys!

Pretty much an accurate description of what we did most of this cruise-- ate!! We were on a Royal Caribbean ship that had two fine dining restaurants other than the dining room. One was called "CHOPS" which was a steakhouse that gave Ruth Chris a run for its money. I had fillet and Kevin had lamb. It was 6 courses and just amazing!! The other restaurant was PORTAFINO which was Italian-- and it was no Olive Garden Italian (which by the way, I love Olive Garden). It was amazing food and the pictures of the skewer thing above and the shrimp thing were from Portafino. Amazing food and an amazing time.

OK, on another note I figured out an issue I have with regards to alcohol. I love a good Pomegranet martini before dinner and then maybe one with dinner. I never get loaded but I realized on this trip that if I have a martini (or any alcohol) before dinner, I totally get ill during dinner. Not like throwing up sick but nausea and stomach cramping sick. Totally strange. I tested the theory and after 2 nights of feeling sick I then tried not drinking before dinner and for 2 nights I was great. Interesting-- at least now I know.

Great trip, great time bonding with my hot hubby, great food, and a great relaxing time!!